Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Oct. 20th, 2009

[Jeffrey McLaren]

Okay.

On the freezing of assets, I understand that's what the act before Parliament will be addressing. So that's for policy-makers to provide us with policy to enforce.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Wouldn't that be a natural, though? Wouldn't you think that would be the most natural thing that government would do immediately?

[Jeffrey McLaren]

That, sir, is for you to decide and for me to carry out.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Good answer.

[Jeffrey McLaren]

There are asset freezes that have been put forward under the UN Security Council for the designated individuals.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes, for designated individuals only.

[Jeffrey McLaren]

Yes.

On the issue of incitement to genocide, Canada delivers on its obligations to both prevent and punish genocide by criminalizing the crime of genocide under domestic law, thus enabling domestic prosecution in Canadian courts where there is both jurisdiction and evidence to support such action. Canada is also a supporter of the International Criminal Court, which deters and punishes perpetrators of genocide.

Canada supported the appointment of a special advisor on the prevention of genocide, with the mandate to make appropriate recommendations for prevention to the UN Security Council through the UN Secretary General.

For further detail on Canada's position with regard to incitement to genocide, I would refer the committee to the responses the government provided to House of Commons questions numbers 361 and 363. I have copies of those here today. They're quite extensive responses that would probably take the next 45 minutes for me to read into the record.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chairman, we'd like to get a copy of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Sure. That uses up the time.

I'll just mention with regard to all the documents, including the responses you would make, that they should be sent to the clerk of the committee, who will then distribute them to all committee members. Thank you very much.

Madame Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

My next question is for Mr. McLaren. What is Canada's position on the presidential election that took place in Iran in June and the civil unrest that followed?

[Jeffrey McLaren]

The allegations of fraud in the June 12 presidential elections are very serious, and we have encouraged the Iranian authorities to conduct a full and transparent investigation to ensure that the votes of all Iranians were counted. At the same time, Canada has made it clear that we will not interfere in the internal affairs of Iran.

The post-election situation has been very troubling for us. We have consistently voiced our concerns and called upon Iranian authorities to fully respect its human rights obligations. The ongoing detention, intimidation, and hostile treatment of opposition figures, academics, journalists, and some locally engaged diplomatic staff and foreign nationals are unacceptable. We have consistently called upon the Iranian authorities to release all political prisoners and journalists who have been unjustly detained. Prime Minister Harper has issued two statements condemning the violence and the crackdown on protesters by Iranian security forces. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has also issued statements condemning the use of violence by Iranian security forces and has called upon Iran to fully respect its human rights obligations.

We have relayed our concerns to the Iranian chargé d'affaires, Iran's top diplomat in Ottawa, on several occasions. In addition to our statements, we also supported a project with the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center to investigate and report on human rights abuses committed against civil society, media, and citizens after the election. We put forward about $60,000 from our Glyn Berry program. The project is documenting the arrests, detentions, torture, and killings of human rights lawyers and activists, leaders of opposition groups, journalists, students, and others. The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center is also analyzing whether the Iranian authorities' censure of the media violated Iran's obligations under international law.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

We have spent a lot of time discussing the Israeli situation with respect to Iran. Can you give us any information about how Jewish people are treated in Iran?

[Jeffrey McLaren]

Iran recognizes three minority religions. Judaism is one, Christianity is the second, and Zoroastrianism is the third. These are officially recognized religions in the Iranian constitution, and each of these religious communities has a specific member of the Iranian Majlis to represent it.

The Jewish population of Iran is the largest in the Middle East outside of Israel. The community is allowed to function. It is allowed to carry out its religious services. Its members are allowed to hold jobs in the community in ways that the Bahá'ís, for instance, are not.

That being said, they are a minority in a population that does not always treat its minorities well. There have been incidents in the past when the Jewish community has faced a number of charges and arrests for allegedly spying for Israel. Some of its members have been put in jail for that. This happened, I believe, in the early part of this millennium.

So the community faces challenges. It has some problems, but its status is official and recognized by the government in a way that the Bahá'í community is not.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I asked you about their treatment, and I want to delve a bit further. To some degree, does Iran's Jewish population suffer from persecution; are their rights violated? We know what the president can say about Israel. But what I want to know is whether the majority of Iran's Jewish population, despite being officially recognized, is subject to persecution, in Canada's opinion.

[Jeffrey McLaren]

The president, in his comments, is always very careful to characterize Israel. He doesn't talk about Jews or the Jewish people. And the Iranian government, in countering the accusations of anti-Semitism and being anti-Israel, points to the fact that its Jewish community is treated well.

Now, the Jewish community of Iran faces the same kinds of human rights abuses that all Iranians face. And on that element, their human rights are being violated. They face some additional pressures from the community, more than from the government, from the fact of their minority status.

Is it as easy to be Jewish in Iran as it is to be Muslim? No. The community is under pressure from emigration, in that many of the community leave. But they are allowed to operate their synagogues and to carry out their duties and religious activities. It's not easy to be Jewish in Iran. There is a certain level of discrimination, or difficult times, but they are not facing the same kinds of pressures the Bahá'í community is facing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That uses up the time for this round.

I noticed that Mr. Angell was trying to get a comment in. Please do.

[David Angell]

Thank you, Chairman.

Very briefly, I just want to make the observation that in the Secretary General's report of September 23 on the human rights situation in Iran, the issue of the rights of minorities is addressed. There is an observation that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights “continues to receive reports of human rights abuses against minorities”, although “it is impossible to verify all the information”. The Secretary General has singled out a number of specific minority groups for reference, including the Baluchi community and the Bahá'í community, at some length. But in the section on the rights of minorities, other than the factual observation Mr. McLaren made about the Jewish community being one of the recognized religious minorities, there's no particular reference to the Jewish community in the Secretary General's report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

The last comment goes to Ms. Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I apologize for being late, but I was at another committee meeting.

I just want to let you know that if I ask questions that have already been addressed, I apologize in advance.

It's a pleasure to see you here. I take particular interest in the human rights situation in Iran as a woman, and I don't know if that's been addressed yet, but I would like to inquire as to what actions Canada has taken with regard to the human rights of women in Iran.

[Jeffrey McLaren]

The resolutions that we have put forward before the United Nations General Assembly have consistently talked about the rights of women, and we've advocated for those rights through that resolution. We do not have active programs working with civil society in Iran, so we have not worked with women's groups and labour groups or others because we don't have resources for that. But we've consistently talked about the rights of women in our discussions with Iran, saying that we expect better performance in a number of areas, and the rights of women is always one of them. In other statements the minister has made about the human rights situation in Iran, women's rights have always been part of the core group of issues we deal with.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Very good, I appreciate those comments.

I know that we do what we can, not only as a Canadian people but also as global neighbours, to ensure that we address and condemn where necessary the abuse of human rights. So I'm glad to hear you're addressing those rights in Iran with regard to women.

I really appreciated what Mr. Silva mentioned about the Bahá'ís. I was recently in Israel with a francophone mission from Parliament Hill and met with some Bahá'í people and was really outraged at some of the situations I heard about. So I'm very pleased to hear Mr. Silva address those. I concur with his concerns about the Bahá'í people, as I do with Mrs. Thi Lac's concerns about Israel. I'm pleased to hear her address those concerns, because they were very prevalent on our mission, during which we were able to speak with Palestinians as well as Israeli government officials.

But what I'd like to know in all of this discussion about Iran's threat to Israel is how real do you think that threat is, and what do you perceive as a potential timeline if that threat is in fact real?

[Jeffrey McLaren]

We do believe there is a threat posed to Israel and other countries in the Middle East by Iran and its pursuit of a nuclear capability. The exact timing of when that point is I think is a matter experts disagree about. But it is a severe enough matter that all countries are trying to come up with a way to end any chance of Iran having a nuclear weapons capability. They are working through the IAEA, the UN Security Council, the P-5-plus-one process, and others, to get Iran to come around to abide by its responsibilities under the IAEA and under UN Security Council resolutions, which demand an end to enrichment until Iran can satisfy our concerns about its past program.

Do you have anything further to add?

[Shawn Caza]

Sure. I could speak a little bit on timelines.

I think it's very difficult to come up with any timeline that's very accurate, which is why, as Mr. McLaren says, there's a lot of disagreement. In effect, people use a timeline depending on the exact question they ask.

Ultimately, for Iran to pose a nuclear threat to Israel or to any other country, it would probably have to do three things. One is to make a political decision to develop a nuclear weapon, and we have no indication that they have made such a decision. That is something else to which we're not likely to get any insight; it's something they would hold as one of their most closely guarded state secrets.

The second thing they would have to do is take the nuclear material they have and change it into a form that's usable in a weapon. Right now they have material that they have enriched to a fairly low level. It could be used to make fuel for a reactor. They would have to enrich this up to a very high level, which is something they would do in one of the facilities that are currently safeguarded by the IAEA. In doing this, they would either first be observed doing it, or they would have to kick out the IAEA inspectors, which would set off significant alarm bells and we think would lead immediately to action at the Security Council.

They would also require some amount of time to do this. There's a large volume of material to be re-enriched. It's taken them over a year to create the amount they have, which is theoretically enough to make a weapon if made into the right form. We estimate that it would take them about half a year or so to reconfigure their plant to do this and another half-year or so to do the enrichment, so you're talking about at least a year of activity after they have made a decision that will cause them to be seen or reveal their intentions.

Finally, they would have to actually weaponize this material. We don't have any indication that they've mastered all the proper knowledge to make a weapon. A nuclear bomb is easy to make in theory, but quite difficult in practice. It's an extremely precise instrument, in effect, that you're creating. They would have to take this material, once they've gone through the stage requiring at least the year that I've spoken of, and physically manipulate it. Again many months would be required if they have done all the theoretical work beforehand and have that hidden.

How far along they are in some of this research is the sort of information we're trying to tease out in conjunction with the IAEA. If Iran answers all the questions and meets all the obligations in its relationship with the IAEA that a country like Canada has to meet, it would have to provide information sufficient either to reveal that it has carried out some of these experiments and studies, and thus implicate itself, or provide information sufficient to reveal that it hasn't gone down this way, and we would feel a little more at ease. It's because of our security concerns that we want to know more information about Iran's position, but it's also incumbent upon them to come clean with the agency for their own alleged purpose of only being interested in civilian aspects of nuclear power.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

We're all hopeful for that, but we do understand the challenges in that regard, particularly when we're talking about secret missions and those kinds of things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I'm sorry, we're actually out of time for your round of questioning.

I noticed that Mr. Angell was trying to get a comment in as well. Perhaps I can let you make your comment, Mr. Angell, and that will complete this set of questions.